Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Not much personal information from Dutch life in Bengal or any other of Dutch settlements in India can be found in the VOC archives in the State Archives. The reason for that is that the VOC correspondence only covered official and business information, written by VOC employees and shared with the local head office and the central office in The Netherlands, The VOC also censored all letters. An exception can be made for Jan Albert Sichterman (1692-1764), who spent nearly 15 years in Bengal.

I translated this information from Dutch using selections mainly from a recent book written by a descendant and various other sources.

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My annotated collection on VOC in India started in 1988 and comprises nearly 450 titles. I have grouped them on the various regions and on two interesting VOC employees. The last category gives interesting views from esteemed Indian historians about the Dutch presence. They include comparisons between the Portuguese, Dutch and British actions in India.

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In December 2013 Christiaan and I drive some 65 kilometres from Tranquebar (with Danish heritage) to Nagaptanam. There we drifts ask our driver to go to the beach and harbour are, with the help of Bauke Van der Pol’s VOC in India book we find the Dutch heritage.

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Cochin, the old town, Fort Cochin, Bolgatty Palace and Vypeen provide the best preserved Dutch heritage in India. Here old Dutch remains are being integrated in Cochin by making them part of life in this Kerala harbour town. Municipalities, INTACH and private Indians have teamed up to turn then into commercial viable operations for tourism and cultural development.

Three old Dutch houses formed the basis of David Hall that is now a cafe art house. Bolgatty Palace turned into a hotel, so did a few other old colonial buildings in old Cochin. A new promenade has many visitors strolling past the revamped Dutch bastion. From one of the hotels one can do a Duct heritage walk that has been developed by Bauke van der Pol.

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Yesterday afternoon I had a nice session with Erik Roskam about maintenance of the Dutch-Indian shared heritage (DISH) website. Erik gave the push for the start of the DISH platform in the Netherlands in 2014. He had approached me through my VOC in India web page that I have since 1997 asking help to find archive material on one of his ancestors who was buried in Chinsurah. I could only help him by linking him with the India Netherlands Friendship Society there. Since then Erik took his family twice to Chinsurah and did more research.

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I em enjoying my garden at the back of my Amsterdam home tremendously. With 15 degrees and a little sun I can already have breakfast with my morning newspaper in it at 09:30 very morning. If it gets 2o degrees I need my parasol.

This garden was designed and implemented by my good friend Ton Hozemans who is a great gardener in Delft.

Today WaterAid is releasing to media a high resolution doctored image of the Statue of Liberty holding a glass of water and a toilet roll entitled “In Water and Sanitation We Trust” designed to show the importance of these essential services. The occasion is the 100 finance and water ministers who are discussing next steps in the Sanitation and Water for All initiative this afternoon in the USA.

It is time to free millions trapped in water and sanitation poverty – Governments convene in the USA today to collaborate on investment in water and sanitation. The charity WaterAid calls for concrete actions to free the hundreds of millions from the devastating impact of dirty water and unsafe sanitation. Universal access to these basic services would save 2.5 million lives every year.

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19 December 2010 is a special day for me and my family. Today my father would have become 100 years. He passed away in 1974 at 64.

My daughter and I wanted to visit my 86-year old mother in Soestdijk today. But the Netherlands is snowed in. The car and train drive from Amsterdam were too risky today. So we were on the phone to exchange memories.

After having paid into a pension fund for 41 years my mother gets only 117 Euro pension per month on top of her old age pension from the Dutch state.

My mom

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I love Amsterdam where I have been living since 1971. Its name stems from a dam on the river Amstel. Have a look at the fantastic collection of daily pictures from Amsterdam life photographer Thomas Schlijper is publishing on his site. I have searched it on “Amstel” and in thumbnails. My newspaper de Volkskrant called Schlijper’s daily picture rightly ‘Amsterdam’s living room”.